Fletcher's Rogue Tanking Guide

[Teoh]

Asharia stop trolling him, you might catch some innocent fresh 50 tank in the crossfire who might in turn be silly enough to go out and tank things with less than 51 points in RS. That would be irresponsible.


For the people who can't do maths and don't understand that he is taking the piss, 6% avoidance is not better than 3.5% mitigation in any scenario when you as a tank have in the region of 70% flat mitigation, and only 20-30% avoidance at best. The amount of survivability these 2 stats give you scales exponentially the more you have of either, and with the current state of damage mitigation on RS each point of flat mitigation is 2-3 times as valuable as an additional point of avoidance, and that gap widens the more you have of it.

So, in Asharia's troll example: A 3k hit on a player with 0% damage reduction is reduced by 105 damage if you add 3.5% mitigation. But you don't have 0% damage reduction, you have an obscene amount of damage reduction in the region of 70%, which means the 3k hit is already reduced to say 900 damage at 70% reduction. Adding 3.5% mitigation onto that reduces the 900 damage down to 795. That's not a 3.5% reduction in damage taken, it's a 13% reduction. And that craps all over the returns you would get from avoidance, as RS avoidance is simply not high enough to scale at that obscene level.

Even if you ignore the RNG aspect of avoidance and compare average damage reduced over a fight, the additional mitigation means you will take less damage overall in all scenarios. You also have the advantage of incoming damage being less spikey and easier to heal, but that's just a free bonus.

[Asharia]

unlike you i actually tanked stuff that hits hard, i dont just theorycraft about things :P
the 6-9% comes from improved falseblade+the 15% dexterty.
lots of testing has shown that avoidance > that little bit of mitigation you get.
btw teoh, i got 41% avoidance raidbuffed, in instances you can get another 3% from combat culmination.
so yes you can get avoidance up that high, healers wont notice if you take 100 more or less dmg per hit.
but if you avoid 1 or 2 hits in a row they will notice.
just keep on doing your t1's and 2's, while im tanking the real stuff :>

[Fletcher]

Yawn. You are indeed wrong about avoidance over mitigation. As Teoh has just explained, in great detail. Ignorance is bliss, it seems. Do you you not find it strange no one agree's with you? Huh, guess not. ^^


While it is true i've not downed any of Greenscale yet, due to lack of numbers, i have indeed tanked many Raid Rifts, and even the Sanctum raid boss who hits like a ****ing truck(Yes that was me out front sponging your raid boss's damage). I have several acquaintances who have down most of Greenscale with half their raid sporting some superior grade items: Hardly the Hardmode raiding i've become accustom and master to over the years. Now i'm sure you'll quip back about "real" raid bosses and the like. But besides Greenscale being of no great difficulty, there are raid bosses hitting extremely hard other places: and i have tanked them.

Your arguement is indeed based entirely on your say so. While others regail us facts, figures and ofcourse statistics, you provide only unintelligent conjecture.

Alas, i shall leave you to your ignorance, and wish you well.

[Asharia]

actually the rogue on the first page did agree with me, just some minor changes in the specc.
and the only that agrees with you is someone in your guild, so i hardly see how that is good evidence that you are right.

and ofcourse, we all have ppl we know who killed this and that, and how good we were at other games.
and yes greenscale isnt very hard, he just hits hard really hard. and even comparing other bosses in t1 or 2 or raidrifts kinda says enough about your knowledge of the fight. there is nothing that comes even close to how hard he hits.

but you know best, getting all the support from your guild, but thanks for the good laughs everyone in my guild is enjoying this very much, so keep up the good work

[Fletcher]

The rogue on the first page thinks mobility and a way to get a massive free heal are "completely unnecessary for PvE", so that kinda rules him out a credible ally wouldn't you think?

And while my guildy did post (actual stats ect, which you have yet to post), i also posted a response on the subject from another, which included extreme detail in terms of the mathematics. All you have posted is conjecture.

I reckon you should post your build to the general Rogue forums: and see what they say. I'll post it for you?

Lets see about those laughs when the greater community see's this awesome build of yours ;)


Oh and i've jsut noticed some thing about you raid build.....you drop your other wise taken 3rd soul, Ranger, losing 5% health and 6% general mitigation on top of the RS 3.5%.

So thats 5% health, and 8.5% passive damage reduction. Over your improved False Blade...surely you can do that math?

[Fletcher]

Apparently i can't do the math either, 9.5%*

[Califaxx]

this thread makes me laugh. just saying.

[Pyrah]

I am no tank in rift. I've tanked a bit, but my experience of serious tanking is 0.

What I am going to say is just from a theoretical point of view and from my tankign experience in other games that have similar mechanics to rift.

Avoidance is godly. But its not for everywhere. Generally avoidance is the way to go for bosses that hit for low dmg but very fast. But for very hard hitting bosses who can get spiky, building on avoidance can create unhealable scenarions.

The 51 riftstalker builds are not that bad. The talents themselves may be of little use, but the more in RS the more Rift Guard and the more HP you have. 51 RS with some in ranger and bladedancer is the way to go for spiky bosses imo. This way you get 3 cooldown abilities which are esepcially nice to have for spiky bosses (scatter the shadows, planar refuge, side steps). Lots of passive DR and HP whilie stillie mainting a high (though not maximal) amount of avoidance.

In spikey bosses the worst case scenarion is the one that needs to be considered. Ie what will happen when the random roll generator gets against you for a few secs, which is ought to happen every now and then in the same encounter. Everybody runs out of luck at some point.

The 44/22 build offers you good but not enough protection. It has a total of 12% passive DR (inculding phatom blow) plus a shield of 31.5% and has little in +hp.

The 51/7RG/8BD build offer you 4% better DR and 3.5% better shields. It also offer you 7% more endurance and 5% more total hp. This (in full T2+ gear) will mean about 1k more hp raid buffed I believe.

When a boss hits repeatedly and fast for 4k an unlucky streak of avoidance rolls, will cause massive damage. On the other hand the extra 7.5% passive DR when combined with the extra hp will mean that the damage will be more easily healable. Furthermore many bosses have abilites that avoidance cant help against. Passive DR + more hp has always been the way to go in such encounters.

I dont see how rift can be that different from other games I tanked that avoidance > passive DR in all cases.

Besides you dont loose that much on avoidance if you compare the 2 builds. Its -8% or so dependinging on agi. You loose threat and some etxra tools that are definately nice to have on some cases, but when considering a clear hard hitting boss fight, 55/7RG/8BD is imo a winner. Such a fight is Lord Greenscale. And I believe your build can explain the fact that sometimes you die on that encounter and the healers go in "WTF? mode". Its just too random for such fights.

[Fletcher]

And I believe your build can explain the fact that sometimes you die on that encounter and the healers go in "WTF? mode". Its just too random for such fights.

The DR + HP or avoidance build here?

[Pyrah]

The DR + HP or avoidance build here?

avoidance ^^

[Fletcher]

So what you're saying is, the 6% parry from improved False Blade is not worth losing 9.5% DR and 5% HP from a 51 point RS/ranger build for tanking "things that actually hit hard"?

Well, while others will be shocked to the core at this, i am not.


This has all been most amusing. And i'd love to know which guild Ash is in (the one he keeps mentioning in his conjecture), so i can make a mental note to never let my guild raid with them in any kind of colaboration.

Because clearly if they all think 6% parry is worth more than 9.5% DR and 5% HP combined, i suspect they just sit in Greenscale wiping over and over and over untill they get a lucky boss kill, calling it progression.

[Pyrah]

So what you're saying is, the 6% parry from improved False Blade is not worth losing 9.5% DR and 5% HP from a 51 point RS/ranger build for tanking "things that actually hit hard"?

Well, while others will be shocked to the core at this, i am not.


This has all been most amusing. And i'd love to know which guild Ash is in (the one he keeps mentioning in his conjecture), so i can make a mental note to never let my guild raid with them in any kind of colaboration.

Because clearly if they all think 6% parry is worth more than 9.5% DR and 5% HP combined, i suspect they just sit in Greenscale wiping over and over and over untill they get a lucky boss kill, calling it progression.

It's not 9.5% its 7.5%. And actually I believe it is slightly lower (7.36) depends on if DR and absorbs are added together which I doubt, or calculated one after another, but anyway the point is the same. Unless of coruse you 8 ranger and 7 bladedancer which would be silly. couse 5% dodge >> 2% DR anyway you see it.

And its not 6% parry that the 22BD build gets, its a bit more due to the 15%agi talent. It should be at least 1% more. and the extra agro of the bladedancer build is more than nice to have. + Its even more avoidance in specific encounters due to Combat Culmination.

Still imo, thats all detail. Every rogue has his own style. And skill > spec. A good rogue might do amazing things in a spec you coinsder bad, while a bad rogue might fail on a spec you consider good.

I know Ash is a great tank, perhaps too stubborn to admit that for some fights some specs are better than others, but still he does a LOT better than you can possible imagine in Greenscale.

[Fletcher]

Well flat DR at similar %'s to avoidance make hard hitting fights much less spikey to heal, which healers prefer a lot of the time. We all can all agree on this. (Lets's forget the 5% HP boost with the DR for the sake of focusing on the essence of the fact).

but still he does a LOT better than you can possible imagine in Greenscale.

This statement concerns me. What exactly are you inferring when you say 'than you can possibly imagine'. As you have no idea to what level my experience runs to in the general realm of tanking, nor to what level my skill runs also.

So on what do you base your presumptions? Popular opinion i suspect. Your friend is right because he's your friend yus? Much lols

[Pyrah]

Well flat DR at similar %'s to avoidance make hard hitting fights much less spikey to heal, which healers prefer a lot of the time. We all can all agree on this. (Lets's forget the 5% HP boost with the DR for the sake of focusing on the essence of the fact).

Yes I believe that any sensible tank will agree on this.

This statement concerns me. What exactly are you inferring when you say 'than you can possibly imagine'. As you have no idea to what level my experience runs to in the general realm of tanking, nor to what level my skill runs also.

So on what do you base your presumptions? Popular opinion i suspect. Your friend is right because he's your friend yus? Much lols

As I never made any comparison between the 2 of you, I fail to see why u got so excited :S

You already said you image him failing at greenscale raids. he doesnt. thus I said he is doing far better than you can possibly imagine.

/cheers

[Fletcher]

I said his guild, not him specifically.

/cheers